BurmaNet News, February 17-20, 2007

[Editor]

February 17-20, 2007 Issue # 3145


INSIDE BURMA
Irrawaddy: Military occupation increases human rights, environmental abuses
Irrawaddy: Restrictions hit internet café owners
The Nation: Shan State Army: fighting for peace
AP: 33 human traffickers given life imprisonment in Myanmar
AFP: Myanmar extends New Year holidays
DVB: Magwe villages ordered to make way for dam
Mizzima News: Tuesday prayer goers nearly beaten up by pro-regime mob

DRUGS
Xinhua: China develops more substitute crops for opium poppy in bordering
countries

BUSINESS / TRADE
Mizzima: Indo-Burma trade to be conducted in Euro
World Politics Watch: China seeks Burmese route around the 'Malacca
Dilemma' - Graham Lees

REGIONAL
Mizzima: Junta should open up process of child soldier abolition: SEACSUCS
PacNews: Asylum seekers fear return to Malaysia

INTERNATIONAL
Irrawaddy: Free political prisoners—UN envoy
Irrawaddy: US concerned over increasing Indo-Burmese military ties

OPINION / OTHER
The New York Sun: Pretoria's cynicism at the U.N. – Benny Avni

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

February 20,   Irrawaddy
Military occupation increases human rights, environmental abuses - Khun Sam

The Burmese government’s ongoing militarization and developmental projects
in eastern Pegu Division are causing widespread human rights abuses and
environmental damage, according to a recent EarthRights International
report.

The report, “Turning Treasure Into Tears: Mining, Dams and Deforestation
in Shwegyin Township, Pegu Division, Burma,” says, “the heavy
militarization of the region, the indiscriminate granting of mining and
logging concessions and the construction of the Kyauk Naga Dam have led to
forced labor, land confiscation, extortion, forced relocation and the
destruction of the natural environment.”

Shwegyin Township of Nyaunglebin District is a counter-insurgency area, or
conflict zone, and the junta has 11 army battalions under Military
Operations Command 21 and Southern Regional Command to conduct offensive
operations and to control the area.

“Karen villagers are assumed by the Burmese army to be assisting the Karen
National Union in some way, or at least sympathetic toward it," according
to the report.

As a result, the local Karen population suffers human rights violations,
including demands for food and building materials and the confiscation of
land by the soldiers for military camps and commercial projects.

The 75-page report, based on three years of field research, accuses the
junta of violations of international law, creating social unrest,
financial hardship and personal suffering.

“As the SPDC expands militarization and strategic business interests in
these areas, the abuses will only continue,” said Chana Maung, the
director of ERI’s Southeast Asia program.

About 5,000 villagers were displaced in Shwegyin Township alone during
last year's military offensive against ethnic Karen insurgents. The
villagers now live in fear of Burmese soldiers.

The report also warned that the government's proposed Kyauk Naga Dam
project will lead to further human rights abuses in the area.

The conservation group called on the regional and international community
to voice its concern and to take actions to help end human rights abuses.

____________________________________

February 19, Irrawaddy
Restrictions hit internet café owners - Shah Paung

A long list of regulations issued to Internet café owners in Burma is
making it more difficult than ever for them to operate.

The list of about 20 different instructions issued to Internet café owners
and obtained by The Irrawaddy aims to keep a close watch on Internet users
and restrict their access to all but officially-sanctioned sites.

Users are warned not to attempt to visit politically-affiliated sites and
to use only email addresses issued by the state-run Myanmar Posts and
Telecommunications. Internet cafés are required to submit every two weeks
the personal details of their customers, records of their Internet use and
random photo shots of computer screens.

Café owners and their customers are prohibited from downloading web sites
and resources and from using external storage devices such as floppy
disks, compact disks and flash drives.

An employee at an Internet café in Rangoon told The Irrawaddy that the
regulations, combined with restrictions introduced last year, made life
very difficult for café owners.

“We cannot follow all of the rules because some users are skilled at
accessing banned websites,” he said. “It is also impossible for us to
watching Internet users all the time.”

One user said Internet café owners who applied the regulations risked
losing customers. “If the shop sticks to the rules, the customers will
turn away,” he said.

One hour of Internet use at a Rangoon outlet costs 700 kyat (US $0.5) to
1,000 kyat ($0.7 cent). During power cuts an additional 1,500 kyat ($1.1)
per hour is charged to cover the cost of generator use.

Burma has only two Internet service providers—the Myanmar Posts and
Telecommunications and Bagan Cybertech, which was owned by a son of ousted
prime minister and intelligence chief Gen Khin Nyunt until he was purged
in 2004.

____________________________________

February 18, The Nation (Thailand)
Shan State Army: fighting for peace - Alice Coster

Loi Tai Leng, Burma: He predicts that in three years they will take back
control of more than half of the 160,000 square kilometres they want
recognised as an independent Shan State.

Colonel Yawd Serk describes himself as "a simple man" who wants his people
to come back to Burma to help him fight for independence. He is a small
man with a pitted face and spectacles, but he has a larger presence as a
leader.

He drums his fingers slowly as he listens to a question. He thinks
carefully before he speaks. "The Shan people have been forced to relocate
and forced to work as slaves by the Burmese Army", he says with obvious
conviction.

Yawd says independence and freedom for Burma's ethnic minorities depend on
educating and training Shan, Karenni, Chin and other ethnic minorities
against a common enemy, the Burmese dictatorship and its State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC).

"The SPDC has no morals", says Yawd. "They do not teach their soldiers
skills; they cannot develop the country. All the SPDC leaders want is
power and control where we have unity."
He says: "We will never surrender".

Surrender, it seems, is not part of the Shan vocabulary. There are Shan
State Army (SSA) camps in various pockets along the northern Thai-Burmese
border. They watch for not only the SPDC but for the United Wa State Army,
a 20,000-strong drug-producing outfit that entered into a cease-fire
agreement with the Rangoon government in 1989. Wa fighters are believed to
be descendants of head-hunters who are concentrated along Burma's border
with China.

The international community blamed the UWSA for much of its drug woes.
Some members even accused the Burmese dictators of turning a blind eye to
drug trafficking.

The 1989 cease-fire agreement, orchestrated by Burma's intelligence chief
Lt-General Khin Nyunt, was organised to neutralise the powerful Wa army,
which had enough arms to last at least a decade. However, the former
intelligence chief is now under house arrest, and relations between the
UWSA and the SPDC have taken a downturn, though not to the point of
fighting.

Yawd said he was willing to join forces with the UWSA, extending an olive
branch to the Wa and perhaps cashing in on the tensions between the UWSA
and the SPDC.

"The Wa do not love the SPDC," he said. "I hope one day we will achieve
cooperation with them, coming together to fight the SPDC. First I want the
Shan State people to have the right of self-determination."

A senior leader of the Karenni National Progressive Party, Rimond Htoo,
agrees with Yawd, saying it is time to join hands to fight their common
enemy, and while the KNPP and the SSA may be moving closer, the Karen
National Union recently suffered an internal split when its 7th Brigade
broke away and signed a cease-fire agreement with the SPDC.

The KNPP leader says the Karenni people "are not ones to fight but are
peaceful in nature".
"The SPDC arrive in our villages, they take everything, they rape our
women and burn down our houses", says the KNPP leader, sitting alongside
Yawd after Shan National Day celebrations.
Rimond praised Yawd for the SSA's support, saying SSA fighters had helped
the KNPP on the battle-field.

"They want to destroy all ethnicity; they want all ethnic minorities gone.
The SPDC wants us to separate and fight each other. We must be very
careful and organise for unity," he said.

More than 1000 people live at Loi Tai Leng. There is no running water, and
water for the Shan soldiers and refugee families has to be brought up the
mountain by truck each day.

The Shan say the SPDC will never be able to infiltrate this mountaintop
camp, where over 400 refugees have been sheltering since 2000 after
fleeing villages burnt by the SPDC. As part of the SPDC's strategy to deny
the rebels support, many of the villagers in various pockets of Shan State
have been forcibly relocated to areas designated by the government.

The head of the refugee camp in this SSA stronghold, Wa Ling, says he
wants to return to his home but it is not safe. "The soldiers protect us
here," he says.

Meanwhile, standing behind barbed-wire entanglements and trenches looking
through binoculars as the Wa build a bunker, SSA's Major Wanlee watches a
group of Wa soldiers from a lookout known as Kong Ka on the border of what
is now regarded as secure Shan territory.

"I am not afraid to suffer, and I will die to achieve freedom," says the
major, who took up arms 21 years ago when he was just 16.

While the SSA and the KNPP are forging closer ties, an alliance with the
Wa may be a pipe dream. In April 2005 this lookout, where 15 SSA soldiers
now stand guard, was the scene of heavy fighting against the UWSA and the
Burmese Army. Wanlee says the battle lasted almost a month.

He said UWSA fighters were scrambling up the mountain firing their
machineguns while the Burmese fired mortar rounds.

Mortar shells are scattered on the ground, and the huts where Shan
soldiers sleep are scarred by machinegun bullets.

Wanlee shows off one of the Shan's own weapons, a steel-pronged
anti-personnel device the size of a fist that pierces the foot of any
soldier who steps on it.

Eventually the UWSA retreated, waving their white flags further down the
hill.

"Everyone hopes for peace and for our country to have freedom," says the
Major, "but we must protect our people, and this is the reason I carry my
gun. I hold my gun to defend my people and my land.

"If they came with flowers we would reply with flowers, but if they come
with guns we will fight back with guns."

____________________________________

February 20, Associated Press
33 human traffickers given life imprisonment in Myanmar

A court in central Myanmar has meted out life imprisonment to 33 people
from a human trafficking ring for luring young women to China for forced
marriage arrangements, state-run media said Monday.

The investigation was initiated after two young Myanmar women were rescued
from a guest house in the Myanmar-China border town of Muse in July last
year, the New Light of Myanmar reported.

A joint China-Myanmar investigation was then able to expose a 64-member
human trafficking ring which had allegedly enticed 49 young women with
well-paid jobs in China and then forced them into marrying Chinese men,
the newspaper said.

Yamethin district court sentenced the 33 men to life imprisonment under an
anti-human trafficking law during sessions which ended this month.

Myanmar introduced an anti-human trafficking law in September 2005 which
imposes a maximum penalty of death. Under the law, victims of trafficking
are to be protected and aided.

The U.S. State Department has placed Myanmar in its "worst category" for
human trafficking, saying it has not complied with minimum standards for
eliminating the problem. The Myanmar government rejected the U.S. charges,
saying the department report failed to acknowledge the government's
efforts and lacked objectivity.

Myanmar's current regime took power in 1988 after violently suppressing a
nationwide pro-democracy uprising.

____________________________________

February 17, Agence France Presse
Myanmar extends New Year holidays

Military-run Myanmar has extended its New Year holidays in April, one of
the most important festivals for the mainly Buddhist nation, state media
said Saturday.

Myanmar celebrates the Thingyan (water throwing) festival for five days
starting from April 12, but the official New Light of Myanmar daily said
the holiday period would be extended to 10 days.

The paper noted the longer holidays would give a good rest to civil
servants, who had to move to the country's new administrative capital,
Naypyidaw, some 350 kilometers (217 miles) north of Yangon.

Myanmar's notoriously secretive rulers suddenly announced in November 2005
that it was moving the government to Naypyidaw.

Speculation about the reason for the relocation ranges from the junta's
fear of a US invasion to astrological predictions and worries over
possible urban unrest in Yangon. Myanmar has been ruled by the military
since 1962.

____________________________________

February 20, Democratic Voice of Burma
Magwe villages ordered to make way for dam

Several villages in Gangaw township, Magwe Division are being forcibly
relocated by the Burmese military to make way for the Pyintha dam project,
residents told DVB.

The Sabai, Kha Mahn, Yinma and Khin Mon villages have all been ordered to
move by March 31 as a result of military plans to confiscate more than
3500 acres of private land.

“The place we are going to be relocated to is ‘kyat’ land which is not
good for cultivation. We are still unable to get drinkable water from the
wells there . . . we will surely die from starvation or thirst,” one
villager said on condition of anonymity.

The Pyintha dam project was launched in 2003 and is due for completion by
2008. Large amounts of inhabited land are expected to be completely
flooded once the dam is finished.

But many of the villagers told to relocate have approached the issue
pragmatically, saying they would not mind moving if their new land was
better and they had more access to health care.

“They must give us good places. We must be given land that is fertile,”
the villager said.

____________________________________

February 20, Mizzima News
Tuesday prayer goers nearly beaten up by pro-regime mob

Supporters of Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi have accused a
pro-regime mob of having planed to attack them at the Shwe Da Gone pagoda
this morning.

Dozens of junta-backed members of the Union Solidarity and Development
Association and pagoda security personnel surrounded and threatened to
beat the Tuesday prayer goers in Burma's famous pagoda. Tuesday prayers
are organised demanding the release of Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu
Kyi.

"I was shocked to see the big mob wearing the pagoda's security uniform
who surrounded us. A man with a walkie-talkie shouted that we be beaten up
saying that they won't tolerate prayers. Then he shouted that we be driven
out of the pagoda compound," said Yin Yin Myat, who participated in the
prayer campaign.

"Captain Thein Htike Oo in civilian dress told his guys to beat us up,"
she added.

However, the palpably tense situation ended without violence after the
prayer goers dispersed from the pagoda.

Hla Kyi (77), a die-hard supporter of Aung San Suu Kyi told Mizzima that
"I requested them not to beat us as we are the same people when I heard
voices saying 'beat them, beat them."

"I was sitting inside the compound near a bamboo fence. They threatened us
saying 'You old granny get out of here. If you do not go out, we will beat
you.' Then a man saw me off to the escalator concerned about my safety,"
she added.

The campaigners said they saw a man with rubber slings and a screw driver
who was among the mob.

"I think were waiting for us to prevent us from praying at the pagoda. But
no one from our group retaliated though some were pushed and pulled
harshly (by the mob). They want us to give up and stop the praying
ceremony," Yin Yin Myat said.

The military junta stepped up the harassment over a couple of weeks
apparently to stop the prayer ceremony for releasing Aung San Suu Kyi.

Earlier, throwing water on the floor and raising the volume of the sound
box on the pagoda was resorted to while the prayers were on.

The campaigners said that they were committed to face the dangers ahead.

_____________________________________
DRUGS

February 18, Xinhua General News Service
China develops more substitute crops for opium poppy in bordering countries

Southwest China's Yunnan Province had helped neighboring countries plant
nearly one million mu (66,667 hectares) of cash-bearing crops as
substitutes for opium poppy by the end of 2006, local Chinese authorities
have said.

An area of 284,000 mu (18,933 hectares) in the northern parts of Myanmar
and Laos was planted with rubber, tea and other cash  crops in 2006 at a
cost of nearly 180 million yuan (22.5 million  U.S. dollars), said Liu
Ping, director of the Yunnan Provincial Drug Control Committee and vice
governor of the province.

Bordering Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, Yunnan faces a major problem with
drug trafficking from the "Golden Triangle," a notorious drug-producing
area along the Mekong River delta, including Myanmar and Laos.

China has helped neighboring countries to grow alternative cash crops to
relieve their dependence on growing poppy.

Last year, the drug-control authorities of Yunnan and neighboring
countries, such as Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, jointly destroyed 185 mu
(12.3 hectares) of opium poppy, according to Liu.

They also cracked 18 drug-related cases, seized 52 suspects and 953.6 kg
of drugs, Liu said.

_____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

February 19, Mizzima News
Indo-Burma trade to be conducted in Euro - Syed Ali Mujtaba

Indo-Burmese border trade is likely to be conducted in 'Euro,' the
currency of the European Union. The idea was mooted at a conference on
'India-Myanmar Trade & Commerce: Challenges & Prospects,' on February 15
in Kolkata.

"The Myanmar [Burmese] Government has been opposing reliance on the
'dollar' and are pressing for 'Euro,' as a currency for border trade,"
said a delegate who returned after attending the conference organized by
the Indian Chamber of Commerce in association with Indo-Myanmar Chamber of
Commerce & Industries.

The Asian Clearing Unit (ACU), a Singapore based company has approved the
idea of trading in Euro, he said adding that Indo- Burmese trade is
currently conducted on the basis of letter of credit (LoC) system.

Soe Paing, Consulate General of the Union of Myanmar [Burma], Kolkata
inaugurated the conference as its chief guest. Delegates from Burma and
representatives of the Indian Chamber of Commerce, and some major Indian
firms attended the conference.

The Indian side expressed dissatisfaction with the nature of border trade
with Burma, saying, "We exchange only 22 items as of now with Myanmar and
it is limited to residents living along the border." They made a strong
plea for lifting of restrictions on all trade items to improve the trade
volume between the two neighbouring countries.

The Burmese delegates advocated promotion of cross-border tourism,
improving infrastructures for land route transportation of commercial
goods and to improve banking facilities in the Moreh-Tamu section.

_____________________________________

February 20, World Politics Watch
China seeks Burmese route around the 'Malacca Dilemma' - Graham Lees

Bangkok: China's warming relationship with the Southeast Asian military
regime the West loves to hate is emerging as a vital element in solving
one of Beijing's biggest problems -- energy security. The jungles of Burma
now seem certain to provide a shortcut for oil from the Middle East and
Africa to the Chinese border.

With China scouring the world for oil and gas supplies to replace its own
rapidly decreasing reserves, strategists have pondered the potential
security problem posed for Beijing by the Malacca Strait, wedged between
Indonesia and Malaysia and through which between 70 and 80 percent of
China's oil imports must pass.

Not only is the strait congested and prone to accidents and pirates, it
could also easily be blocked in an international conflict. Beijing
believes this is what the United States would do if the two countries
confronted militarily over Taiwan.

According to U.N. statistics, more than 60,000 vessels pass through the
strait annually, carrying 25 percent of the world's trade. China's
President Hu Jintao has referred to it as Beijing's "Malacca Dilemma."

"The Bay of Bengal and the adjoining Andaman Sea impinge far less on the
geopolitical consciousness of Southeast Asia and its policymakers than the
South China Sea and the adjacent Gulf of Thailand," said Michael
Richardson, a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of
Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, in a recent paper.

"Yet both maritime zones are integral parts of the same vast conveyor belt
of seaborne trade that runs between the Indian and Pacific oceans and
carries huge quantities of oil to Asia from the Middle East and Africa.
The route is a critical lifeline for the export-oriented economies of East
Asia, among them China, Japan and South Korea."

A pipeline -- perhaps eventually more than one -- from a Burmese port up
to China's southwestern province of Yunnan, which Beijing is keen to
develop, would not only bypass this potential obstacle, it would lop over
1,800 sea miles off the present journey to Chinese South China Sea ports
from the country's main oil sources.

Oil tankers bound for China from the Mideast and in particular new sources
in Africa, where Beijing is also engaged in a charm offensive, are likely
to be carrying more than half of total Chinese energy needs by 2015, the
independent U.S. Institute for the Analysis of Global Security has
projected.

Last year, the Chinese imported 145 million tons of crude, an increase of
more than 14 percent on 2005, and costing $15 billion according to the
General Administration of China Customs.

The Chinese did consider a deal with Thailand to build a pipeline across
that country's narrow 60-mile Kra isthmus, connecting the Indian Ocean
with the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea. However, Thai
government sources say this idea has been dropped by Beijing's planning
body, the National Development and Reform Commission, as too fraught with
problems -- not least the risk of becoming a target by disaffected Muslim
separatists operating in southern Thailand, who are becoming increasingly
violent.
Burma under a tough military regime offers Beijing more reliable security
for a pipeline that would be about 900 miles long.

The state China National Petroleum Corporation has ended speculation about
Beijing using Burma as an oil conduit by announcing it is conducting a
detailed assessment with the state Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE)
for a crude oil terminal on the Burmese island of Ramree, off Myanmar's
Arakan coast, fringing the Bay of Bengal.

A pipeline would course more than 500 miles from the coast-hugging island
through rugged terrain to the Chinese border, and then another 400 miles
or so through Yunnan to the provincial capital of Kunming, where a
refinery is also planned.

Analysts suggest one oil pipeline across Burma might cost between $2
billiong and $3 billion and might eventually handle up to 40 million tons
per year. A sum of $3 billion is a trifling for China when you consider
that the country's biggest coal-producing province, Shanxi, last year
achieved a turnover in domestic coal sales of $24 billion, and paid taxes
of more than $2 billion.

There has been speculation that the Chinese would use the existing Burmese
port of Sittwe, closer to Bangladesh and founded by the British in the
19th Century. But there are two reasons why the Chinese prefer the tiny
port town of Kyauk Phyu on Ramree, about 70 miles farther south: security
and isolation. The island is remote with virtually no transport
infrastructure linked to it. The only way to get there is by ship or by
plane using a small airstrip.

Sittwe is set to become the center of Burma's Bay of Bengal gas processing
industry, but this is where India has already staked a claim to a gateway
to the sea for its landlocked and isolated northeastern states, which have
a combined population of 36 million, fractious and clamoring for
development.

As part of its much-touted, but neglected, Look East economic policy, New
Delhi has undertaken to spend over $100 million redeveloping Sittwe --
whether or not it eventually becomes the major buyer of the trillions of
cubic feet of gas discovered less than 50 miles offshore.

China also has its eye on that gas, and both countries have said they
would be interested in building gas pipelines to their respective
countries from Sittwe, if the purchasing terms were right.

The Burmese regime recently listed Kyauk Phyu among several new economic
zones for tax-free investment by foreigners, a move that now seems to have
been aimed at pleasing the Chinese.

"An oil pipeline, or maybe several, makes a lot of sense to the Chinese
when you consider the volumes they are going to be importing," said
Bangkok energy commodities analyst Rex Garrett. "If they pull off a deal
with the Burmese on the gas as well they could run a feeder pipe down from
Sittwe and run oil and gas pipelines together.

"Of course, none of this is quite what ASEAN [the Association of Southeast
Nations, of which Burma is a member] had in mind when it recently
discussed energy security with China."

ASEAN agreed at its annual summit in January to press ahead with its own
transnational gas pipelines and power grid development among the ten
member countries, and to discuss joint energy projects with China.

What seems to be happening is that China is using ASEAN countries as a
conduit for its own energy security and also seeking to buy up as much gas
and oil from Southeast Asia as it can. Beijing recently secured a 25-year
supply deal for liquid natural gas from Malaysia.

China's cozying up to Burma, which includes vetoing U.N. Security Council
attempts to discuss human rights and other Burmese issues that vex Western
countries, and supplying armaments, might be more farsighted than simply
trying to solve the Malacca Dilemma.

The floor beneath the waters of the Bay of Bengal has barely been
explored, and so far large quantities of gas have been discovered,
prompting some energy commentators to speculate it could be Asia's North
Sea, which yielded huge quantities of hydrocarbons for Britain and
northwest Europe. However, territorial waters claims over large areas,
including a dispute between Burma and Bangladesh, remain in a tangle.

And Beijing could yet replace its Malacca Dilemma with another equally
troublesome one -- the unpredictability of the generals who have been
running Burma for decades.

Graham Lees is a Bangkok-based British journalist who has worked in
several countries in East Asia over the last ten years covering regional
business and political affairs.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

February 19, Mizzima News
Junta should open up process of child soldier abolition: SEACSUCS - Mungpi

The Southeast Asia Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, a network
of human rights and child focused NGO's, said the Burmese junta should
open up its claimed process of halting the use of child soldiers.

The SEACSUCS, in an open letter sent to the Burmese junta head Senior
General Than Shwe on Sunday, listed a seven point recommendation urging
the junta to open up the process of abolition of child soldiers in Burma,
which it claims to be implementing.

The Burmese junta, which has been accused of having the largest number of
child soldiers in the world by human rights groups and United Nations
agencies, claims that with the formation of a committee to prevent
recruitment of child soldiers it has successfully been implementing an
action plan to abolish the recruitment of children into armed forces.

Ryan Silverio, regional director of the SEACSUCS said, "They [the junta]
always claim that they do not have child soldiers... this is a
psychological tactic."

With concern to the issue of child soldiers, the junta has been trying to
prove to the international community that child soldiers have been
abolished from the Burmese Army camps, but there are still child soldiers
in the Burmese Army, said Silverio.

In early February, members of the junta's Committee for Prevention of
Recruiting Child Soldiers, formed in 2004, took representatives of the UN
agencies and foreign diplomats to No 1 Defence Services Recruiting Unit in
Insein Township to show the process of the army's recruitment and to prove
that employing child soldiers has been successfully abolished.

"What they want to do is they want to approach the international
community, the diplomats and the UN to go to this camps [Army camps] but
the junta can do anything to remove the children there, far from the sight
of this international visitors," said Silverio.

However, Silverio said if the junta wants international cooperation it
should open up the process and allow civil societies, human rights groups
and international communities to make recommendations.

He also said, "Use of child soldiers is not just a political issue, we are
talking here about the lives of children and therefore there should be
concerted action by international organisations."

The UN Security Council resolution, which was vetoed by Russia and China,
was one entry point for the international community to put pressure on
Burma, said Silverio.

According to human rights watch's 2002 report, Burma, which has been ruled
by military dictators in different guises since 1962, has over 70,000
child soldiers. However, child soldiers are found not only in the Burmese
Army camps but are also found in ethnic rebel groups, which are fighting
against the central government.

But Silverio said, some of the non-state armed groups are already in the
process of discussing the issue and are willing to cooperate with
international organisations to address the matter, have a frame work and a
plan of action and how to deal with children who are in their custody.

_____________________________________

February 19, PacNews (Pacific Island News Service)
Asylum seekers fear return to Malaysia

A group of Burmese asylum seekers detained on Nauru for several months
face spending years on the tiny, sweltering island after rejecting an
offer to return voluntarily to an uncertain future in Malaysia, reports
The Age.

In a toughening of the Pacific Solution, the group has been told they will
not be resettled in Australia even if they are found to be refugees - and
that they could spend a long time on Nauru.
Seven of the eight Burmese, who were dropped by Indonesian people
smugglers on Ashmore Reef last August, say they cannot return to Malaysia
even though it could eventually lead to them being resettled with their
families in Australia.

They say their fear of persecution in Malaysia, where they lived after
fleeing Burma, and uncertainty about what would eventually be offered in
Australia is simply too great.

We have suffered a great deal in Malaysia and do not want to go back to
suffer again, one of the Burmese said in a telephone interview through an
interpreter yesterday.

Only we know the kind of suffering we have gone through.

An eighth asylum seeker is considering the offer of a voluntary return to
Malaysia but only, he insists, because of concern about the welfare of his
two young children. All are Muslims from Burma's Rohingya ethnic minority.

The offer of two possibilities from the Howard Government to resolve their
status has been held in strict confidence since it was communicated to the
Burmese on 15 December through their Melbourne lawyer, David Manne, who
co-ordinates the Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre.
Mr Manne told The Age that now that they had made their decision, the
group wanted the offer to be made public - along with their reasons for
staying on Nauru.

Their emphatic belief is that the whole proposal (for return to Malaysia)
is far too uncertain, far too precarious and far too frightening. It would
leave them back in the state of very dangerous limbo from which they fled,
Mr Manne said.

They have not a skerrick of confidence that there would be anything that
would come even close to effective protection in Malaysia. It would mean
going back to the lion's den, to the very place where they suffered
horrific abuse for years on end. It would retraumatise them.

But the men told yesterday how they were also extremely apprehensive about
staying on Nauru, saying all were suffering from depression and a number
had required hospital treatment.
On Nauru they are fundamentally out of sight, out of mind, out of rights,
Mr Manne said, and expressed concern that the fundamental unfairness of
processing claims on Nauru could result in the forced deportation back to
Malaysia.

_____________________________________
INTERNATIONAL

February 19, Irrawaddy
Free political prisoners—UN envoy - Lalit K Jha

The decision by the Burmese military junta last week to extend the house
arrest of senior democratic opposition leader Tin Oo by a year has been
received here with condemnation at the United Nations and among human
rights groups.

Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the special rapporteur on Human Rights in Burma,
expressed regret over the Burmese military's announcement and urged the
“unconditional release” of all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu
Kyi, head of the National League for Democracy and her deputy, Tin Oo.

“This will be critical in facilitating national reconciliation and
democratic transition, to which the Myanmar [Burma] leadership has
committed itself,” Pinheiro said.

Both Aung San Suu Kyi and Tin Oo have been held without charge or trial
for more than ten years, he said in a statement on Friday. In January, the
new UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, called for the release of senior
Burmese political leaders.

Meanwhile, the New York-based Human Rights Watch termed Tin Oo's extension
"arbitrary," and said it was proof of the junta’s lack of commitment to
move toward democracy.

“The continued detention of the leaders of the party that won the last
election in Burma shows how the military junta is fearful of political
dissidents striving for democracy,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at
Human Rights Watch in a news release.

“The Burmese government relies on China and Russia’s backing to flout the
international community’s demands to free political prisoners like U Tin
Oo,” he said, adding that more than a 1,000 political prisoners are held
in more than a dozen prisons in Burma.

China and Russia voted a resolution against the military junta in the UN
Security Council. The resolution called for the release all political
prisoners, political dialogue and an end to human rights abuses against
ethnic minorities.

“Burma’s military government is using its detention and harassment of
political activists to smooth the way toward writing a new constitution
that would allow it to stay in power,” Adams said.

Human Rights Watch urged China and other countries with influence over
Burma to prevail upon the junta to release political prisoners and
accelerate the process of restoration of democracy.

____________________________________

February 19, Irrawaddy
US concerned over increasing Indo-Burmese military ties - Lalit K Jha

The increase in military relationship between India and Burma in recent
years does not seem to have gone down well with the Bush Administration,
which would like to see India encourage more human rights reforms.

Keeping a close watch on the developments in the region, the US is
understood to have voiced its concern at recent reports of military
transfers and increased military cooperation between India and Burma.

“The Burmese regime’s systematic violation of human rights, including
forced labor, use of child soldiers, extrajudicial killings, custodial
deaths, disappearances, rape and torture, are well documented,” a state
department official told The Irrawaddy.

Under these circumstances, the US would like to have seen India reduce its
military cooperation with Burma and use its influence and relationship
with the military junta to speed up the democratic process and encourage
reform in the country, the official said.

It is believed state department officials have voiced their concerns to
authorities in New Delhi. The US and several European nations have imposed
economic sanctions on Burma, pending restoration of democracy and release
of its leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest.

At the same time, the official stressed that the ever strengthening
relationship between India and the United States remains strong and has
reached a new peak during the Bush Administration.

This is manifested in the Indo-US nuclear agreement for civilian
cooperation and the visit of President George Bush to India last year.
Economic and business ties have taken a major jump in the last few years.

However, officials said the US is concerned over the growing military ties
between the two countries and is closely observing military developments
in the region.

A series of high-profile military visits between the two countries has
been seen during the past year. Chiefs of all three Indian forces—Army,
Navy and Air Force—visited Burma last year, besides the Indian President,
A P J Abdul Kalam. The Foreign Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, visited Burma
in January this year.  From the Burmese side, the junta chief Snr-Gen Than
Shwe visited India in 2005, followed by a visit from joint chief of staff
Gen Shwe Mann in December 2006.

All these visits have resulted in ever increasing military relationship
between the two countries, with India offering its expertise, military
training and sale of arms to Burma.

This week, the Indian Home Secretary, V K Duggal, was on a five-day visit
to the new Burmese capital at Naypyidaw seeking the cooperation of the
military junta to destroy training camps of revolutionary ULFA militants
inside Burma.

On reports that the Burmese military junta has agreed to a military
crackdown against ULFA militants inside its territory, the Bush
Administration does not seem to be averse to the idea of cooperation on
this front of fighting against terrorists. In fact, it seems to endorse
such counter-terrorism operations.

“We understand that India confronts a number of violent insurgent groups
that conduct their operations in India’s northeastern states from their
bases in Burma.  All efforts should be made to counter terrorist threats,
and we encourage counter terrorism cooperation,” the official said.

A report released Friday by the New York-based Human Rights Watch
reiterated allegations of human rights violations by the Burmese military.

____________________________________

February 20, Irrawaddy
Global campaign planned against Salween River dams

A international coalition of environmental and human rights organizations,
led by two NGOs in Thailand, the Coordinating Committee on Rural
Development and the Salween Watch, will launch a worldwide campaign
against the construction of hydro-power dams on the Salween River in Burma
next week.

A petition protesting the dams will be presented to Thailand Prime
Minister Surayud Chulanont and Energy Minister Piyasvasti Amranand on
February 28.

On the same day, activists in more than 10 cities, including Tokyo,
Washington DC, San Francisco, Sydney, Delhi and Berlin will stage their
own campaigns against the Salween Dam projects at Thai embassies and
consulates in the respective countries.

“Ecological integrity, human security and local livelihoods will be
jeopardized if the stepped, series of dams is built from Shan State down
to Mon State along the Thai-Burma border,” the petition states.

In 2005, the Thai and Burmese governments signed a memorandum of
understanding to develop five hydro-electricity dams on the river, which
forms part of the Thai-Burmese border.

The construction of the Hat Gyi Dam—co-developed by the Electricity
Generating Authority of Thailand and China's Sinohydro Corporation—is
expected to start in November 2007, and the commercial distribution of
power is projected to begin around 2014, providing electricity to
Thailand.

_____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

February 20, The New York Sun
Pretoria's cynicism at the U.N. – Benny Avni

How would the current South African government have voted had it been one
of the 11 members of the U.N. Security Council debating Resolution 191 in
June 1964?

Would it have sided with the majority of eight who imposed an arms embargo
against the apartheid leaders who ruled Pretoria at the time, setting in
motion a worldwide boycott of their racist regime? Or would it have joined
the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and France, who abstained? Would it have
gone even further, using legalistic arguments to push the Soviets to veto
the resolution outright?

The question is not only a what if historical exercise. South Africa,
which in January joined the Security Council, has become a powerful voice
on that panel, which now has 15 members. Next month, Pretoria will assume
the rotating presidency, putting it in a position to set the tone as the
council's debate on Iran heats up.

Tomorrow, the United Nations' own nuclear watchdog will tell council
members what they already know: defying resolutions, the mullahs have not
suspended uranium enrichment. China, Russia, and South Africa are expected
to lead the fight against any meaningful reaction to this defiance.
For South Africa, the alliance with Russia and China, which oppose
interference in the internal affairs of wayward regimes, is a historical
lesson in political cynicism. Remember apartheid? Remember Nelson Mandela?

This January, in South Africa's first significant vote as a council
member, it helped to block a mild, non-binding resolution of rebuke to a
regime that had long-imprisoned a freedom-aspiring opposition leader, and
to a group in power that cruelly oppresses another, disenfranchised group.

Pretoria's ambassador at the United Nations, Dumisani Kumalo, joined his
Chinese and Russian colleagues who vetoed a British-American proposal to
reprimand the ruling junta in Burma. The junta's record of rape and
killings of its Karen-speaking minority, and its imprisonment of the
world-renowned opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, have led some to
compare it to South Africa's apartheid rulers.

The comparison was heard loudest in Pretoria itself. "Will South Africa
ever meet a dictator it does not like?" asked a leader of the largest
opposition party, the Democratic Alliance's Douglas Gibson. "I am deeply
disappointed," said Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Burma's "tyrannical military
regime is gloating, and we sided with them." Stung by the criticism, Mr.
Kumalo resorted to U.N. legalisms. "It's very important that the Security
Council does what the charter says it's supposed to do, which is maintain
international peace and security," he said last week, when I asked him
about the historical comparison.

"In the case of South Africa, we had an apartheid regime that was a menace
to its neighbors," he argued. "They bombed and killed people - in
Zimbabwe, in Botswana, in Lesotho." In contrast, Burma "is not bombing
India, they're not bombing Malaysia."

Mr. Kumalo, a former exiled reporter and organizer of divestment campaigns
in America against his apartheid tormentors, now argues that the Security
Council acted then only because of South Africa's external aggression.
Cases of internal oppression, like in today's Burma, should instead be
handled by human rights organs, he told me.

Good luck. The Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council is interested only
in condemning Israel, which it has already done eight times. The only
attempt to condemn another country, Sudan, was blocked after Khartoum last
week once more rejected a Geneva-mandated fact finding mission.

And no, that 1964 resolution, in which the council decided to impose
sanctions against Pretoria, had nothing to do with aggression against
neighbors. It came as a direct reaction to the life sentence imposed on
Mr. Mandela.

One paragraph appealed to the regime to "liberate all persons imprisoned,
interned, or subjected to other restrictions for having opposed the
policies of apartheid." By Mr. Kumalo's logic, the menace presented by
Tehran to the entire Middle East should lead to Security Council
sanctions, while anti-apartheid resolutions should have been sent to
Geneva, where they would wait their turn - after the 50th anti-Israel
resolution perhaps. But Pretoria, as it did on Burma, most likely will now
side with China and Russia in opposing any meaningful action against Iran
- or any other world tyrant for that matter.

South Africa is now a top continental power, harboring even bigger
aspirations to global leadership. In that quest, once it has become a true
democracy, it has joined hands with some of the least democratic regimes.
Welcome to the world of diplomatic real-politic.